I waited a long while for this and the result surprised me!

[Jon_Dahl]

I've been running a Greyhawk campaign since 2009 and in 2011 or 2012 the PCs helped to create the ground rules of an Adventurers' Guild which eventually became multinational. One of the very first decisions that they made was this: the monthly guild fees would be the one-tenth of an adventurer's monthly earnings (tithing). They decided against fixed guild membership fees.

They soon regretted their decision. It seemed that calculating AND paying 10% of their earnings to the guild was painful. I think that they complained about the tithing every time it came up. I didn't say anything, but I found it amusing. They had made a clear choice: tithing over fixed fees. And they hated that choice.

To make matters worse, the players lost a lot of their influence over the guild policies when they created new characters. The new PCs have been regular members in the guild with little say-so. However, things have changed now.

The guild has decided to select a new leader. There are two runner-ups and the guild members get to vote for the new leader. The candidates were formally presented to the guild members in today's game session.
Candidate #1 is a human male wizard 11/aristocrat 1 who advocates for a more powerful guild with fixed membership fees and he vows to end tithing. He is very ambitious and has promised to make the guild great. He is the second son of a baron and not afraid to say that.
Candidate #2 is a male elf wizard 9 who wants to protect the younger members of the guild and perhaps create an Adventurers' Academy (first of its kind). He believes in the youth. He wants a safer future for all the members. He knows that adventuring is risky, but it should be too risky.

First of all, I was surprised to see that the elf was heckled by the dwarven cleric of Boccob, one of the PCs, in front of the guild members. He did a pretty good job at it and the dwarven members of the guild enjoyed the heckling ("Enjoyable performance" in Perform (Comedy) check) and laughed with him. The dwarf PC was openly racist about the elf and many of the non-good dwarves sympathized with his sentiments and the lawful good dwarves felt that the elf and dwarven cleric were both dishonored since the elf couldn't defend his honor with words nor demonstrate his authority against a heckler.

One of the PCs made plenty of questions to the candidates. He wanted to know about the fixed membership fees and about the academy. After the meeting, two prodigious and well-respected apprentices came to speak with the PC since they had liked his questions and wanted to know his thoughts about the answers. He said that the human is better than the elf and they should probably all vote for the human. The word spread among the apprentices.

Thus the PCs have managed to make the human a slight favorite and he will win.


The human is Lawful Evil and a cultist of Asmodeus. His Hextorite allies assist him with Undetectable Alignment and his entire family in comprised of Hextorites (mother's side) and Asmodeus worshippers (father's side). He will keep the membership fees low at first and persuade Hextorites and cultists of Asmodeus into the guild, and increase the fees soon after he has gotten many of his fellow cultists and allies into the guild. He will work hard to get his family and the guild to work closely together.

The elf, who is bound to lose, is Chaotic Good and wants to lead like elves usually lead: focusing on the big picture while leaving the minutiae and executing the plans to others.


I find it very amusing that they decided to support the NPC who wanted to overturn the players' earlier decision and actively oppose the one that didn't find any problem with the guild that the players have helped to create.

[Jopustopin]

Is the voting style purely democratic (like a popular vote) or is it more like the electoral college?

[noob]

It is not because someone is evil and believes in an evil god that he can not have good ideas who improve the society.
Since he is going to be the leader of the guild and lawful evil it will be truly in his interest that his guild succeed and having a guild with a good reputation is important for its success(and thus since he gains more power if his guild is successful it can be in his interest to make everyone in the guild behave in a civilized way else he can lose a lot of members and wealth and possibly attract the enmity of people)
So it is most of the time in the interest of evil people to behave in civilized ways.
He could do a whole lot of good as a leader.
However since gms are all people that do not make evil guys behave in the optimal ways he will somehow make the evil guy try to send assassins to kill kids for no reasons other than trying the player to face him and fight him like if he had an effective int of 1(I mean why employ assassins or make a secret church sacrificing people or make evil laws that hurt people when you can just manage in a normal way the guild you are the master of and get power with minimal risk involved).
It is not because you will get a lot of evil family members in your guild that you will let them behave in stupid evil ways(personally if I was an evil guy who got to employ people I would try to have them under control for having more power).

[John Longarrow]

Lawful Evil always thinks in terms of the group and their relationship to the rest of the group.

A Lawful Evil leader will still enjoy themselves and abuse their position, but they are very aware of how groups work and will do everything in their power to make the group stronger.

A smart LE leader in charge of the guild will do a lot to make the guild itself stronger and improve the position of the guild within society. He may start by strong arming advantages for guild members in local communities (free food and board at local inns, free transport with caravans/ships, free entrance and tax exempt status for loot) in return for guild members doing what they would probably do anyway (protection while present).

He would also work to make the guild more self sufficient so that it is not dependent upon dues. Having guild members establish estates in the name of the guild, group raids on dungeons/know bad guys (guild sponsored so guild gets a big cut of the loot) and other money making projects. Toss in charging for a lot of the services the guild can provide (security, spell casting, consulting work, ect) that people could come to the guild for and he'll quickly become a favorite of the now much more wealthy adventurers who belong.

Only when you see the results of these policies on local populations (forced into service of the guild) that you realize he is slowly enslaving populations. For most adventurers this won't be readily apparent. Those who are CG would be the first to notice, but even lawful good characters may be stuck in the "These restrictive laws are bettering society" mind set.

Let him be a good leader. Let him do many good things for the guild and for some of the people who deal with it. Let him expand his power base in a manner that is benevolent to those who belong to the group.

For better answers for what he would do I'd suggest contacting Red Fel as your personal guide to the wonders of Lawful Evil..

[Jon_Dahl]

Let him be a good leader. Let him do many good things for the guild and for some of the people who deal with it. Let him expand his power base in a manner that is benevolent to those who belong to the group.


Certainly! But on the other hand:

However since gms are all people that do not make evil guys behave in the optimal ways he will somehow make the evil guy try to send assassins to kill kids for no reasons other than trying the player to face him and fight him like if he had an effective int of 1

I don't intend to play his alignment and intelligence wrongly, but having a Lawful Evil leader should open up the chance of making the PCs his enemies, right? Just think about it: a group of two CG characters and one N character worked hard to have an LE leader :D If that is not funny, I don't know what it :D

According to DMG, the first thing the leader should do is to have strict rules with severe, almost draconian, punishments. It seems that the guild will have an amazing amount of "traitors" in the near future! And while these "filthy traitors" are hunted down and killed, the cultists flood in... Nice... After the guild has been "cleaned", things will get rather brutal. But effective. An effective little dictator.


Is the voting style purely democratic (like a popular vote) or is it more like the electoral college?

Popular vote. That is why the "enjoyable" heckling and smart lobbying, both performed by the PCs, were so crucial.

[Azoth]

First things first: Red Fel! Red Fel! Red Fel!

There. Now that the summoning is out of the way...

This new leader does not have to go for draconian martial law right off of the bat. Trust me, major policy changes don't happen immediately. The ones that do never go over well.

Have him start small, changing minor policies to suit his needs. Punishment for breaking these changes should be tough but fair. New leaders need the majority on their side. Paint him as no nonsense, not the Queen of Hearts. Think fines, temporary revocation of membership/privileges, eventually culminating in expulsion.

Those who speak out against him should be forced to place burdens of proof. Make them work hard for painting him as evil/wrong. Think of it like a debate. The enemies have to prove chocolate is the best ice cream flavor. He doesn't have to prove vanilla is the best, just the maybe another flavor is better than chocolate.

Only when someone has the upper hand on him, does he reveal the royal straight flush up his sleeve. There he drags them over the coals to destroy the leg that they stand on. Have him start bringing up every unpopular, illegal, or shady thing his opposition has done. Smear the names of his foes through the fresh manure.

Basically, have him act like modern day pollititians. He already did the hard part of getting elected. Now his concern is with keeping his powerbase.

[Jon_Dahl]

I like your suggestions, Azoth, and I think I will apply them in my game. Thank you. Since all this happened yesterday, I don't have a clear step-by-step plan yet. As the thread title suggests, it was a big surprise that CG characters wanted an LE leader and I guess I still haven't recovered from it.

I have to plan what to do next pretty carefully since the LE leader will be a major NPC, most likely the NPC, in my game.

[Me1000]

Is the voting style purely democratic (like a popular vote) or is it more like the electoral college?
Form the context given I think it is purely democratic

[icefractal]

According to DMG, the first thing the leader should do is to have strict rules with severe, almost draconian, punishments. It seems that the guild will have an amazing amount of "traitors" in the near future! And while these "filthy traitors" are hunted down and killed, the cultists flood in... Nice... After the guild has been "cleaned", things will get rather brutal. But effective. An effective little dictator.You could, but that will definitely show his hand and have the PCs opposing him from close to the start. If that's what you want, then perfect, but he could also do it more subtly so they don't see a problem until it gets serious:

1) Bring in a number of LN Hextorites. Have some of them form a 'hand of justice' squad that goes after people who mess with guild members. When people raise doubts, point out that they're not evil, they're strict but very precise in their judgment, and they're protecting the guild members!

2) Expand the role of the 'hand of justice' to judging and enforcing that judgment in intra-guild disputes. In a guild of this size, there are bound to be some. They might need some additional authority to do this role, but how else can we stop infighting?

3) Continue growing their role into full fledged inquisitors. Now you can start hunting down "traitors" and enforcing an increasing number of rules. Also, more Hextorites and Asmodeus followers can be brought in, since the inquisitors are the ultimate judges and they say the new members are fine and dandy.

[Jon_Dahl]

Excellent, icefractal! I especially like your idea of having the (probably few) Lawful Neutral Hextorites (and Asmodeus cultists) to be the forerunners of a larger invasion.

[Jon_Dahl]

Oh man, I just realized something... The dwarf cleric PC managed to persuade a paladin of Heironeous (NPC) to vote for the human noble instead of the elf... And the human noble will target the clergy of Heironeous since they are the mortal enemies of his allies :o

[Red Fel]

First things first: Red Fel! Red Fel! Red Fel!

Yo.


*SNIP*

I love this story. I really do.

It has everything a good story needs. PCs create the situation at hand, by creating the Guild in the first place. PCs make the situation worse, by imposing tithes (which, ironically, favor junior adventurers) over dues (which favor senior adventurers). Players then make things even worse by replacing the PCs.

And now we have these two candidates, and the PCs are clearly backing the right horse. This is entirely a situation of the PCs' - and players - own device, and I love it. And good on you, JD, for letting them do this. I tip my nonexistent hat to reveal what are clearly not horns.

Now, as for your leader immediately imposing strict, draconian rules... No. That would be dumb. This Human, as a candidate, has shown a degree of political savvy. He would be acting inconsistently with that savvy to show his hand the instant he achieved power.

Instead, let him do exactly as he promised. Replace tithes with flat dues. Granted, this would disadvantage junior adventurers, who generally lack the resources. But an easy solution presents itself! Junior adventurers can make application for provisional admission to the guild, and if they pass the application process, they can take out a loan from the guild. This will enable them to cover adventuring expenses which might otherwise be beyond their reach, which would in turn enable them to pay dues to the guild.

Usurious lending rates, you say? Nonsense! The loans offer an opportunity! So what if the rates are so high that the guild ends up collecting more in interest payments than it would in dues alone. And so what if these junior adventurers are essentially selling themselves into a life of slavery just to cover their expenses. It's an opportunity! And perhaps, someday, when they're senior adventurers, they'll slay a dragon, hit it big, and pay off all of their debts! Perhaps.

Next, let him promote mission-based adventuring. Using his connections as an aristocrat, he is able to find clients who want to hire adventurers. Guaranteed work, not just scavenging for dungeons! His connections will help the guild to thrive, and its members to succeed beyond their wildest dreams!

Evil clients, you say? Rubbish! They're upstanding, decent members of society. So what if many of them are the new guild head's close, personal friends and family. And so what if they ask the guild to do some morally questionable things, crush a few uprisings, root out rival factions, impose martial law. It's adventuring and combat experience! It's a paying job! And with every successful mission, the guild rises in esteem in the world! Isn't that more important than the slow degradation of one's personal moral code?

Surely, you understand what I'm saying.

[Lazymancer]

What he said -^

Bonus points if the supposedly CG Wizard Elf - who will undoubtedly lead the resistance against the Asmodean cult - will also be secretly LE. You don't put all your eggs into one basket, do you?

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you, Red Fel! I will certainly put your ideas into good use! It's also great that all of you agree that he should keep his promise. I think that is important... Even though NPCs may be treacherous and try to kill the PCs every now and then, I think that some level of honesty is necessary. So off with tithing, bring in the dues! Aaaaaand LE cultists and heavily indebted apprentices.... But all in all, the political promises MUST stand.

[Azoth]

There is a reason good Evil characters are masters of semantics. The devil is in the details. Big A's famous quote "Check the fine print."

Just because he is evil doesn't mean he won't keep his word...it just so happens you misunderstood the intent behind the words. I get in trouble for this fairly often in my day to day life. My significant other has learned how to handle it and word things air tight so I don't have wiggle room, but most others haven't.

I do hope all goes well with your campaign arc, and you manage to get your players with this. I probably wouldn't go with the CG Elf was secretly LE as well. Let him stay CG, and if he is standing when the dust settles, and he gets into power over the guild, then some other fun can happen. After all, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nothing like watching a character thinking in the long term screw it all up, by being unable to deal with the short term.

[Jon_Dahl]

I created the leader (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx0NhN0o9JzxeE1JcEk0YnpMWDA) just now, feel free to critique.

[John Longarrow]

I've been thinking on this for a while, and bringing in the cultists in the near future is not in his best interest. That not only may tip his hand too soon but it also lumps them in with the others too quickly.

Let him start trying to expand the guild instead.

Let him cut deals with other groups and guilds, some of which get to come in 'grandfathered' in under their old rules.

Let one of these groups be the cultists he really wants who will be paying less than others, be getting all the benefits, but have to perform "Service" to the guild. This service quickly goes from generic guard and administrative work to taking over the security of the guild and running the shop. Don't think Hitler for rise to power, look to Joseph Stalin. He came to rule the Soviet Union by starting as the lowly party secretary. Of course once he realize that he could control who attended what meetings and what the agenda was, he realized just how much power he could gain...

[Jon_Dahl]

1. In “an attempt to mitigate racism”, he (the LE leader) asks the most powerful members to openly support his idea of appointing a half-orc advisor and formally inviting more half-orcs to the guild. Usually a high percentage of half-orcs are chaotic or evil, so this will help him to get minions. He doesn’t like chaotic creatures, but they make useful tools. If the high-level members do not support his idea, he will note their potentially useful racism. He will try to get them to murder falsely accused half-orcs and then extort them or ruin them morally.
2. In order to secure internal security, he will create an internal police force. He will handpick “suitable” members for this job. They will be better paid than other members and hold a special position within the guild hierarchy. Everyone hates them but everyone wants to be one.
3. He will emphasize the guild’s multinational nature in such way that they hold fealty to no king. This will blur the members’ sense of justice, since local laws are not that meaningful: after all, their guild is a multinational entity and local laws are different everywhere. Different=not very meaningful.
4. He will create a false flag attack against the guild and frame the local army for this. The guild will kill the framed soldiers, but the guild will not be held responsible for its actions. He had already made sure that they could kill the soldiers before the false flag operation started. The guild members will feel that the world is full of enemies and everyone wants to harm them, even though they are the good guys. Maybe everyone else is a bad guy?
5. He will create three distinct hierarchies within the guild: 1. the most powerful members, 2. powerful members and 3. two leading apprentices. He will play them against each other.
6. His cult will kidnap one of the most powerful members of the guild and brainwash him/her. There will be a mission to save him/her, and over the course of that mission the weaker members of the members of the guild and the cult will be killed while the stronger ones will get stronger. He will be very understanding towards the brainwashed member and hope that everyone will treat him/her with respect. He will highlight his/her years of experience and service.

[Thurbane]

I created the leader (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx0NhN0o9JzxeE1JcEk0YnpMWDA) just now, feel free to critique.

Well first things first - a beardless Wizard? Whoever heard of such an odd beast! :smallbiggrin:

...is that stat allocation to represent the character, rather than be optimized? The high Cha I can dig, as it's part of his schtick. But I'd look at swapping around Str, Dex and Con. From a mechanical perspective, they should probably be prioritized Con > Dex > Str.

Love the story, and love even more that you've set it in Greyhawk! :cool:

[Jon_Dahl]

Well first things first - a beardless Wizard? Whoever heard of such an odd beast! :smallbiggrin:

...is that stat allocation to represent the character, rather than be optimized? The high Cha I can dig, as it's part of his schtick. But I'd look at swapping around Str, Dex and Con. From a mechanical perspective, they should probably be prioritized Con > Dex > Str.

Love the story, and love even more that you've set it in Greyhawk! :cool:

Yes, it is supposed to primarily represent the character and optimization comes second, but I'm happy to receive any and all critique, thank you. He could grow a beard later on. I already described him beardless to the players. Btw, he also has a long leather jacket, like in the Matrix, but he's noble so it's ok for him to have strange and expensive outfits.

[Andezzar]

Yes, it is supposed to primarily represent the character and optimization comes second, but I'm happy to receive any and all critique, thank you. He could grow a beard later on. I already described him beardless to the players. Btw, he also has a long leather jacket, like in the Matrix, but he's noble so it's ok for him to have strange and expensive outfits.Once he starts making obvious moves towards twisting the guild, he should grow a moustache and start twirling. :smallwink:

You should think about what his ultimate goal is. Is it world domination? Is it feeding souls to Asmodeus? Is it corrupting as many (previously) good members as possible? Does he something specific in mind for the PCs? Does he want to recruit them, after all they helped him to power?

Answering these questions may make devising a plan for him easier.

[Jon_Dahl]

You should think about what his ultimate goal is. Is it world domination? Is it feeding souls to Asmodeus? Is it corrupting as many (previously) good members as possible? Does he something specific in mind for the PCs? Does he want to recruit them, after all they helped him to power?

Answering these questions may make devising a plan for him easier.

A very, very good and important question, one that I should have addressed in the OP. Apologies.
His goal is to make the guild great (he was speaking the truth!). He wants the guild to be like an empire in terms of economic power and importance to kingdoms. The guild must have the best and strongest NPCs of the world in its ranks. The guild must also have something unique, like a powerful artifact or an extraplanar entity (or a magical death star etc.), that will make all the kings and princes envy the guild. He intends to reach his goals slowly and steadily.

[Andezzar]

I wouldn't be surprised if the PCs were on board with that plan. So recruit them, let them commit evil in his/the guild's name.[insert evil laughter here]

Hmm, the powerful entity could be some kind of devil that cannot be (permanently) killed, so who better to imprison it than the guild master....

[Segev]

The one thing from your list of ideas that I think is questionable is the false flag attack. While I can see a way to justify a Lawful individual engaging in such things, it is probably breaking codes of loyalty to his own organization to be the one actively funding the attack. It is more likely that he would orchestrate deliberate (but subtle) provocations in order to get a genuine attack on the Guild from a group he wants to crush.

This is less likely to be discovered in a "smoking gun" sort of way, because even if the attackers are captured and investigated, they really are the group they claim to be and they really do hate the Guild (rather than being paid by the Guild).

While it's also more "visible" that he may have "brought it on himself," there's loads of ways to set up plausible deniability about how it was a combination of oversights, just business that didn't go this one group's way, and that group's own fault for not being reasonable about X, Y, or Z...and while he'd love to find a peaceable solution, the Guild's reputation is now on the line, so damages must be punitive or vengeance must be taken, as much as it pains him to do so. (And, if not called on it, he can instead go for righteous indignation.)



As to Red Fel's advice, I think the loans are a BRILLIANT idea...but they should be structured in a way that the usurious interest can be miraculously paid off when the members reach a certain point. Probably take a Company Store approach to the magic item trade (this would actually be an excellent way to enforce magic item prices and the "sell for half" rules), and use a Guild Scrip for any adventurers who are in debt.

But like I said, it should be structured so that senior members can "buy out" of debt. After a certain point, you really don't want the Xth-level adventurers murmuring about the burdens they suffer. You want them giving good reports about how the system works, once you "pay your dues." The fact that the "breaks" that the "hard working" guild members who fought their way out of debt got were provided by carefully-selected mission assignments given only to those Guild members who prove loyal and useful and to have ideals that are malleable enough to fit the leadership's goals need never be advertised.

This makes the usurious loans and company store a means of barring entry while pretending to do the opposite. Everybody's welcome! Hard work pays off and gets you power and wealth! But strangely, if you aren't of a mind-set that the leadership likes...well, you obviously aren't working hard enough and aren't cut out to be an adventurer. Pity about that debt you owe. Do some last favors and maybe we'll let you out of it; after all, we all want you to succeed. Honest. (If that "last favor" has a high mortality rate...well, that's the lot of an adventurer.)

[HurinTheCursed]

I loved the reading =)

Outside the fact counting loot is cumbersome and requires administration few player enjoy, the problematic looks like politics in fact ! Do experienced and rich adventurers vote for what is close to their ideals (being chaotic good, that would be the elf) or for what it changes for them (how much they pay, being wealthy a fix amount is cheaper for them) ? Do they favor the wealthy / the insider / the ones who proved their worth or the fragile / the outsider / the next generation ?

Like most D&D models, the guild certainly has a pyramidal level system with more beginners than experienced adventurers. Especially since a flat tax favors newbies over than who earn a lot. You could thus predict more voters have more interest to vote for the elf today. But if they project themselves as future successful adventurers, they could vote for a fixed amount believing that will be better for them in the long run. Usually, the few successful would replace the old glories who end up retiring while many recruits would end up dead or imprisoned and you would have to attract a lot of young ambitious new adventurers to replace them.

They know how guild composition contributes to the earnings. If they went as far as setting a cost structure, they could determine how demographics play for or against each candidate. Hence a marketing plan could be adapted to attract a type of demographic or another.


How about an evil pyramidal scheme ? The recent members can cover their debt if they tutor new members ?

[John Longarrow]

One other item not mentioned...

Very low level NPCs could get into the guild on a "Welfare" type system where by they will always be taken care of, they will always have some coin in their pocket, but they can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get out of debt to the guild.... This means the leader will have a large number of loyal followers who do what they are told simply to keep living a relatively easy life even though they can never hope to get better than "Minion" status.

[Jon_Dahl]

The one thing from your list of ideas that I think is questionable is the false flag attack. While I can see a way to justify a Lawful individual engaging in such things, it is probably breaking codes of loyalty to his own organization to be the one actively funding the attack. It is more likely that he would orchestrate deliberate (but subtle) provocations in order to get a genuine attack on the Guild from a group he wants to crush.

Actually false flag attacks where you attack "yourself" are pretty lawful, as odd as it may seem. Nazis are the epitomes of lawful evil and they had Operation Himmler. The US almost had Operation Northwoods which was planned by some very lawful and strict men. It seems that only a highly organized and disciplined organization with efficient leadership can orchestrate false flags. It is difficult to look at the long list of RL false flag operations and see any hint of chaos there.

I guess it all boils down to whether covert operations are lawful or chaotic by nature.

[Keltest]

Actually false flag attacks where you attack "yourself" are pretty lawful, as odd as it may seem. Nazis are the epitomes of lawful evil and they had Operation Himmler. The US almost had Operation Northwoods which was planned by some very lawful and strict men. It seems that only a highly organized and disciplined organization with efficient leadership can orchestrate false flags. It is difficult to look at the long list of RL false flag operations and see any hint of chaos there.

I guess it all boils down to whether covert operations are lawful or chaotic by nature.

If they answer to a ruling body of some sort, theyre probably going to be lawful, by design. People don't really appreciate it when their super commando ops group runs around doing whatever it wants to without control, those things are dangerous. Its like letting an attack dog run around off a leash. If they work for themselves, then like any group of people, it will depend entirely on the group. Chaotic people can certainly do the job well, but theyre going to be less than inclined towards following the restrictions that some groups would put on them, which is probably why theyre independent in the first place.